Tag: Democratic socialism

How many people do you know personally who would have their taxes raised?

The question of which income group can and should be paying more, both in real dollars and percentage of their incomes, for all of society’s benefits is the wealthy.

Why them? Because the wealthy in America are actually the greatest socialists to ever live, and no amount of failed Republican rhetoric about trickle-down economics or the amoral lies of libertarian Objectivism will change this reality.

Only voting for people like Sanders will.

Corporatism is Capitalist Socialism

Think about it.

Everything that happens in the present-day and so-called capitalist system we live in is designed to not just “trickle up” but to flood the wealthy with greater and greater advantage and wealth.

Besides Wall Street’s insane ability to privatize all their gains while socializing their losses; besides polluters who can freely pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere without bearing any of the expense for what the pollution does; besides the hundreds of billions that are spent annually from federal coffers on subsidies and contracts to some of the biggest and richest corporations ever seen on the planet; the everyday occurrences that also make them socialists include all of the benefits they get from a system that is set up to actually make their wealth even possible.

Social service programs that their workers – sadly, more and more of our fellow citizens – need just to survive, forget about growing and thriving

How does this happen?

Because too many Americans have been duped into believing they are Republicans and insist on voting against themselves and the rest of us by voting mostly for corporatist Republicans who pass ALEC-written laws that benefit the already rich and powerful.

You’re Not a Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaire, You’re a Socialist

The rich and powerful have had it too good for too long and at our expense.

It’s about time we all wised up and started electing people like Sanders who will tilt the field back in our favor.

Not to a level field. Tilted to our favor.

The “level playing field” where one’s lot in life is supposedly determined solely by their desire and tenacity and hard work is a ridiculous and juvenile Objectivist myth perpetrated by libertarians who love to believe that Americans are not socialists by nature but actually just “temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

I call out libertarianism in particular because, generally speaking, it is an especially abhorrent and selfish form of corporatism which happens to form the foundation of modern-day Republican social and economic policy.

History shows without question that what rich and powerful men – and with still rare exceptions in the 21st century, it’s white men of privilege – left unchecked will operate with wanton disregard for anything resembling what it means to be a human being living in a modern and civil society. They are sociopaths, and why some people outside of their gated communities and exclusive country clubs would decide to worship them for their cutthroat Objectivism and for their hoarding of wealth and power is one of today’s great social and political mysteries.

Far Past the Time to Raise Taxes on the Rich

The rich and powerful exist only as a result of our labor. If the economy was limited to only the transactions and consumption of the richest 1%, how long could it actually last?

Spend the next few minutes listening to venture capitalist, Nick Hanauer, if you don’t believe me, or Sanders, or Robert Reich, or anyone who understands even the simplest concepts of how our economy works.

The rich and powerful rule over us untouched only because too many of you in the 99-percent insist on voting for Republicans which is, at the very least, a vote against your own economic self-interests and the economic interests of all of the rest of us.

That’s why I’m supporting Bernie Sanders.

For the first time in my 50+ years, I feel like there’s someone I can vote for who is willing to talk about raising taxes on the rich and who is willing to say to all of us that,

“The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time.”

So, I get it. It’s easy to understand why you’d be a libertarian or a Republican and against Sanders if you make (or inherited!) a lot of money.

What’s impossible to understand is why you’d consider yourself to be a libertarian or a Republican if you don’t have a lot of money.

Trapped by the Kochtopus

If you’ve never heard of the Kochtopus, then please spend some time making a close examination of the tentacles of Kochtopus so you’ll understand just how far-reaching a single wealthy family like the Kochs are influencing everything around you; from the media, to think tanks, to academia, to legislators and judges, and more. If anyone can find a similar beast that exists on the left, I’d like to see it. (Cue the George Soros haters.)

Wake Up Call

Look. It’s time for everyone making $250K or less to wake up and to stop pretending you’re a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, or a Republican, or even a libertarian.

You may not realize, but what you actually are is a corporatist. You’re on the wrong side. You’re supporting people like the Koch brothers, the Waltons, and Wall Streeters who wouldn’t cross the street to piss on you if you were on fire. (Crass, I know, but I think it makes the point, don’t you?)

What you are is one of us.

You’re a 99-percenter.

And, you are far more likely to benefit from a tax increase on the wealthy to fund policies and programs that tilt the field in favor of middle class and poor Americans than you are to find yourself among the whiny One-Percenter “socialists” who will just have to find a way to go on living with one less house in the Hamptons and one less yacht to water ski behind.

Come on. Just be real. Five minutes at Sanders’ campaign site will convince you that you have way more in common with the vision and policies of Bernie Sanders than any other candidate. (To my fellow progressives, liberals, and Democrats, that includes Hillary, too, btw.)

We are all democratic socialists. We all should be supporting Sanders. We should be caucusing for him and voting for him in the primaries. He’s the only one who seems to care about all of us outside the One-Percenters, and that’s ok. The One-Percenters will be fine no matter what. It’s all of the rest of us that we should be thinking about now.